by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
The story of the September 1961 case involving the possible abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by UFO occupants has been related and examined in numerous publications and formats. It’s an intriguing case and was the first of the late 20th century UFO abduction reports to receive serious consideration (and publication) by investigators. This makes it a case worthy of attention because the story told by the Hills couldn’t have been influenced by previous abduction narratives. The main source for the abduction story that is focused on by most researchers, such as John Fuller who wrote the 1966 book about the case titled The Interrupted Journey, is the tapes from the hypnosis sessions the Hills went through in 1964 with Dr. Benjamin Simon. Before that, the case was considered to be merely a sighting report. That’s how it was presented by Walter Webb, the primary investigator who submitted a report dated October 26, 1961, to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. After news of the Hills possibly having been abducted got out, Webb was moved to submit an updated report, dated August 30, 1965, that contains the abduction account. Included in that report is a copy of the letter Betty Hill wrote to NICAP Director Donald Keyhoe dated September 26, 1961. This is the first document with a complete version the Hill’s sighting as it was consciously remembered. As for the abduction account, Webb included a copy of a five-page document, written by Betty a little over a month after the sighting, that shows that it actually originated in a series of dreams Betty had on consecutive nights shortly after the encounter. The letter and document are included in The Interrupted Journey, but their significance as the first recorded accounts of the Hills’ experience very close to the time of the event is not emphasized by Fuller. Read more
by Charles Lear, author of 
In 2010, an 
Out of the three most prominent people in UFO abduction research, Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and John Mack, only Mack had any formal training in psychology. Hopkins was an artist, Jacobs was an historian, and Mack was the head of the psychology department at Harvard Medical School. Mack’s interest in UFO abduction research first gained major media attention when he co-chaired the Abduction Study Conference at M.I.T. in June of 1992. His position at Harvard lent credibility to the subject, and he worked to convince other academics to consider it seriously. Harvard’s leadership didn’t interfere with Mack’s interest until he published a book in 1994 titled Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens based on his research with 13 subjects. Mack had had previous success as an author with a 1976 book on T. E. Lawrence, A Prince of Our Disorder, which won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. Abduction was a hit and Mack was featured in many newspapers, television news shows, and talk shows. As Mack’s position at Harvard was part of the story, there were some there who felt it was necessary to examine the validity of Mack’s investigations.